the quality of mercy
by only-more-love
Summary: Liam tells Theo something he desperately needs to hear. "You're not a monster, Theo." "Are you sure?" [Episode tag for S06E20: The Wolves of War]


**A/N:** Please note that since, thanks to a quick lesson from Deucalion, Theo took Tracy's and Josh's pain in Season 5 of Teen Wolf, I'm not interpreting Theo's inability to take Mason's pain as a lack of caring on his part. Sure, Mason said, "You can't take pain if you don't care," but that may have been out of spite, lack of knowledge, or the Teen Wolf writers not realizing they were violating their own canon.

* * *

The quality of mercy is not strained;  
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven  
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;  
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes…

The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I  
William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

* * *

When he was five-and-a-half-years-old, Theo Raeken ran down the stairs of his family's small house to do what he did every morning before he did anything else—say hello to Mr. Blue, his parakeet. But on that day, brushing the sleep from his eyes with impatient hands, Theo found Mr. Blue lying still and silent on the scraps of newspaper that lined the bottom of his cage, surrounded by scattered birdseed.

"Mom," he called, "Come here."

His mother walked out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel dotted with blue flowers. "Honey, we need to get you ready for school. I already have your breakfast on the table."

"Mom," he said again. "Why isn't Mr. Blue moving? Or chirping?"

She stepped into the room and stood next to Theo, bending until she was level with the birdcage. After peering inside, she turned to Theo, her mouth turned down at the corners. "Oh, sweetie. I'm sorry...Mr. Blue is dead."

"Dead? Does that mean he's sleeping late today?"

With a sigh that ruffled Theo's hair, his mother sat on the floor and pulled him down into her lap. "No, Theo. I wish that's what it meant." Her arms tightened around him, holding him closer. He didn't mind. "Dead means that he won't sing anymore or eat anymore or fly anymore when we open his cage door."

"But we can make him not dead, right, Mom?" he asked, shifting in his mother's warm lap to look into her soft, blue eyes. She was the prettiest girl he knew. Way prettier than his sister, who liked to roll her eyes and make faces at him whenever he asked to play with her and her friends. Prettier than every girl in his kindergarten class.

His mother's hand shook a little when it brushed his hair out of his face. "We can't. But we can think about him. And we can talk about him. Is there anything you want to say about or to Mr. Blue?"

"Like what?" Theo replied.

"Like goodbye, maybe?"

A tear spilled down his mother's cheek; Theo smeared it with his thumb before speaking again. Why was she crying? "Bye, Mr. Blue. You're a good bird. I like how you sing." His mother smiled a tiny smile before rubbing a slow circle over his back.

"Goodbye, Mr. Blue," she whispered, gently rocking Theo.

* * *

At eighteen, Theo found himself sprinting down a Beacon Hills Hospital hallway that was scented with a thick perfume of bleach, fear, and anger. Arm outstretched, he shoved Liam Dunbar ahead of him, trying to make sure he didn't get shot by a stupid, confused kid named Gabe. (What a shitshow Theo'd turned his life into.) He got a bullet to the shoulder for his trouble and a near heart attack as he watched Liam risk his dumb ass anyway, trying to wrestle a machine gun away from Gabe.

That was Liam: brute force and a heart so fucking big it was all Theo could see or think about every night as he lay in his truck trying to pretend a mattress covered in cool, clean sheets cradled his tired body. (He'd never tell Liam that.)

When the shooting stopped, leaving a vacuum of eerie quiet, Theo's eyes sought Liam. Liam, with the lips that smiled as easily as they frowned. Liam, who asked him questions and waited, listening like he might care about the answers. _Always Liam._ Theo's eyes found him next to Melissa McCall, struggling to get up, his movements slow and stiff, but his heartbeat thrummed steady and strong, like the man Theo saw him growing into. A better man than Theo. Satisfied that Liam was fine, Theo filtered out the other sounds in his environment and cataloged the remaining heartbeats. That done, Theo's attention turned to Gabe.

As he dragged himself on his belly, Gabe left a long, crimson smear on the hospital linoleum. The copper and iron scent stung Theo's nose; he tried not to breathe too deeply. Blood. Theo hated it, having seen and spilled so much of it that the smell of it made his gut churn.

Gabe ended his painstaking pilgrimage and propped himself against a glass-walled cabinet. Blood dripped from his mouth and the gunshot wounds in his chest. His breath scored the air, harsh, labored, a dry death rattle echoing in his chest like claws scraped across slate. Theo didn't know much, but he knew death and had witnessed it or caused it enough times to recognize the futility of thinking Gabe would survive his injuries.

"It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It _hurts_ ," Gabe said, the words rendered into an awful chant that ricocheted in Theo's skull and yanked him back to the moment when Kira had used her sword, and his sister had dragged him down, deep into the bowels of hell. His nails had broken off as he'd scrabbled for purchase on the ground, knowing with a terrible certainty that no one would help him. Why should they?

 _Scott! Help me, Scott!_

Theo gritted his teeth and let his claws emerge just enough to cut into his palm. The flash of pain punched him back to the present. Ignoring the blaze of heat sparking in his slowly healing shoulder, Theo walked to Gabe. Brows drawn together, Theo gazed down at the boy with the faint shadows ringing his eyes. A boy not so different from him—not so different from Liam, who'd fractured the earth to bring Theo back from hell. Who'd shown Theo more kindness than he'd ever expected. Certainly more kindness than he deserved.

The space around Gabe stank, sour with pain, fear, and the urine Gabe hadn't been able to contain. It should have disgusted Theo; it _would_ have disgusted Theo, once upon a time.

As Theo knelt, two tears spilled down Gabe's cheek, adding salt to the mix of smells already coating the air. Throat and chest tight as the restraints the Dread Doctors had used on him, Theo watched this dark-haired boy with the haunted eyes, this fragile, wholly human boy without any supernatural healing abilities, as he struggled with the pain inflicted by people he'd trusted.

Gabe had chosen the wrong side; maybe he deserved the brutal consequences.

Theo had chosen the wrong side before, too; maybe he'd deserved the injections that burned like both fire and ice in his veins as the Dread Doctors strapped him down to a steel surgical table and sliced into him with their scalpels, again and again and again, while he screamed...until no more sounds crawled out of his raw throat. Until he learned pleading for mercy was about as useful as wishing he could rewind his life.

Theo had lied. He'd manipulated. He'd killed. He'd turned his back on things like goodness, kindness, mercy, hadn't he?

Still, with the weight of Liam's gaze on him like a tangible thing, and each sure pulse of Liam's heart an anchor at the edge of his awareness, Theo realized those things hadn't completely turned their back on him.

Maybe, just maybe, if someone had been able to help him when it all started, back when he'd been a clueless, misguided child who hadn't understood nearly enough about consequences as he'd thought he did...

But all the wishful thinking in the universe couldn't unwind the tangled skein of the past. It was too late to save the boy Theo had once been; he only existed in his aching chest, where his sister's heart beat, a constant reminder of his crimes. It was too late to save the broken boy gasping in front of him. Was there nothing he could do?

No god existed for Theo to pray to for help. God hadn't been there when the Dread Doctors had come calling. God hadn't been there when his sister had come to reclaim her heart. God hadn't been there when Theo had helped the Doctors find fresh victims to test their findings on.

There was only Theo and the twisted, Frankenstein-like creature he knew he was.

He could fill volumes with what he knew about how to inflict pain. This time he wanted to take it—and not so he could steal someone else's power along with it. He just wanted this boy not to hurt anymore. It hadn't worked when he'd tried to help Mason. What had Theo expected? He'd been engineered to kill, not heal.

Still, if there was even a slim chance he could help Gabe, he had to try. He had debts he could never repay, after all. Perhaps he'd add this to the long list of his failures. Or perhaps—

Theo's hands trembled as he clasped Gabe's forearm, easing his sleeve up, trying not to add to his torment. _Let me help him. Let me do this one good thing. Let me help him._

Black ribbons snaked up Gabe's arms and threaded through Theo's. He stifled a gasp as the banked fire in his shoulder flared anew and swept through the rest of his body. The intensity of it made it impossible to ignore entirely, but Theo shoved it aside.

Gabe's pulse was a light, thready thing under Theo's fingers, fluttering like the wings of the butterflies his sister had loved; he knew it wouldn't be long then.

"Does it hurt anymore?" Theo asked, and it didn't sound like his voice.

"No."

"Good."

As Gabe's agony continued to travel into Theo, Theo watched the light and the life in Gabe's eyes dim until they were left, finally, dull and flat.

After placing Gabe's arm in his lap as gently as he could, Theo sat back on his heels. Head bowed, breath shallow, he stared at his hands without seeing them. He felt himself start to shake, the adrenaline that had driven him since Scott's phone call wearing off and leaving him feeling weak; he couldn't afford weakness.

The air behind Theo shifted until a hand, calloused and warm, stroked across the back of his neck, settling at his nape. "Maybe I'm not a complete monster?" A hot flush splashed over his chest and rose up over his throat and cheeks when he realized he'd spoken his thoughts aloud, and even worse, colored the words like a question. For a moment, he almost wished the ground would open up and swallow him again. Almost.

Liam kneeled in front of Theo, and when his fingers left his neck Theo made a small noise in his throat. But Liam reached for him then, tugging him forward with one arm curved around his good shoulder and the other wrapped around Theo's lower back. Touch, Theo knew, was synonymous with pain. But Theo went, unresisting, letting himself be pulled until his chest was flush against Liam's.

He should let go. He shouldn't lean on Liam. He shouldn't tuck his head into Liam's broad shoulder and turn his head in toward his neck, where his pulse drummed a little faster than it should. He shouldn't inhale, long and slow, drawing the scent of Liam's skin, which smelled like sweat, comfort Theo would never deserve, and wild, green, growing things, deep into his lungs.

He shouldn't, but he did.

Touch, Theo knew, was synonymous with pain. But this—touching Liam—didn't hurt.

"You're not a monster," Liam murmured, his lips brushing Theo's forehead with each word he spoke. "You're a chimera."

"Are you sure?" Theo asked, hating himself for the way his voice wavered.

Liam drew back and lifted his palms to either side of Theo's face, and when Theo looked up from the green of Liam's shirt, his gaze caught in eyes as endlessly blue as he imagined the water in Mykonos must be.

Head tipped to the side, Liam said, "I'm sure." Then he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss next to the corner of Theo's mouth.

Theo ignored the shocked gasp that reached his ears. Sure, it wasn't the kiss he had imagined when they'd been in the elevator, but they had an audience now. Even so, his sister's heart beat embarrassingly fast, like a wild thing running in his chest, and his fingers twitched with the need to tangle themselves in Liam's long hair and hold him in place for a kiss Theo could taste.

"You're not a monster, Theo," Liam repeated.

 _Look, I'm not dying for you._

Theo didn't want to die. Not anymore. Not for anyone. But he would, for Liam. Oh, he would. He would. He would. He would.

* * *

Later, much later, after they'd done the necessary things like tending to the injured and burying the dead, Theo lay on the grass at the Beacon Hills Preserve, with his head in Liam's lap. He closed his eyes against the vast blue of the sky and let himself be lulled until the world narrowed to the feel of Liam's long fingers stroking through his hair and curving against his scalp.

 _Goodbye, Tara. Goodbye, Gabe. Goodbye, Tracy. I'm sorry. Goodbye, Josh. Goodbye, Mr. Blue. Goodbye, Mom. Goodbye, Dad. Goodbye..._

* * *

 **A/N:** Thanks for reading! Please comment if you feel up to it. :) If you want to fangirl with me about Liam/Theo tumblr, you can find me on tumblr. My username in onlymorelove.


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